Friday, August 26, 2011
1 Thessalonians 5:15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
CALLED TO ... LIVE THE GOSPEL
This verse gives us the "anti-Gospel" in three words: wrong for wrong.
The Gospel is all about God giving us good for our wrong. Answering our sickness with healing. We shovel sin and attitude at God, He returns love.
When we're engaged in our Christian fellowship, engaged in the body of Christ, we can help each other to remember Christ's love and forgiveness. We do this in two ways. One, by talking about the way Christ forgave us (through the cross), and two, by forgiving like Christ forgave us (unconditionally). In these two ways we model Christ to each other. Christ the preacher, and Christ the hands-on-healer. By speaking the Gospel of forgiveness and living the Gospel of forgiveness, we help our fellow Christians to live the Gospel too, not the anti-Gospel of repaying wrong for wrong.
In Christ we're called to live the Gospel for the unbelieving too. How else will they come to know Christ's love unless through seeing it bleed out of everything we do? How else will people really trust us crazy Christians unless they see that we don't have an agenda, but we have a heart filled to bursting with God’s grace?
Of course, Paul knows that we're going to have to work on this. He says "strive" to do what is good for each other and everyone else. It's a bit like being a doctor, you never stop "practicing."
So, who can you practice living-the-Gospel on today?
